


Mortis Revisited

by thenonsenseprophet (ProfessionalCouchPotato)



Series: Ahsoka Displaced [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, an all around frustrating experience, confusion????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29520186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessionalCouchPotato/pseuds/thenonsenseprophet
Summary: Ghosts of the past and the future meet on Mortis again, or perhaps for the first time. Who can say? Time doesn't exist.
Relationships: The Daughter | Winged Goddess & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Ahsoka Displaced [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164395
Kudos: 15





	Mortis Revisited

**Author's Note:**

> Day three, I live! I know people have weird feelings about the Mortis arc (I do too) but this is actually a somewhat important chapter. *Kronk voice* this is when it all starts to come together.

For better or worse, Mortis is different than her shadowy recollections. 

In an unstable ravine, hidden by a jagged boulder that looked for all the world as if it had been carelessly tossed and forgotten, her door emitted only the barest of lights. Its green glow was very nearly indistinguishable against the verdant greenery of Mortis, but come nightfall, it would be more of a beacon in the dark than Ahsoka cares to consider.

Whether or not the Three have noticed her arrival, and given that it wasn’t _prophesied,_ which would be just her kriffing luck, it will not matter once the Son gains dominion over the land. 

All the more important, then, that Ahsoka find whatever it is she needs to do and leave. 

Ever since the door had opened into this absurdly bright rendition of one of her oldest nightmares, she had felt that something was… off with the place. It was so bright, light, and hopeful. She had known immediately that the Daughter yet lived.

The ravine that Ahsoka finds herself in is familiar in its unique living emptiness. The sun shines brightly, and the plant life of Mortis is diverse and prolific. That, at least, is familiar, as is the way nothing moves in the underbrush; that which flies through the sky she has no intention of being found by. She has already resolved that she must speak to the daughter, and that it will be on her own terms, and no others. 

Less familiar is the feeling of the mid-day sun on her neck, for the third hour of her attempt to climb out of the stupid ravine.

Sweat trickles down the side of Ahsoka’s face. Irately, she tells herself that it could be worse, that there could be bugs, or that she could have _hair,_ getting damp and oily and disgusting. Or, the door might have deposited her directly into the Son’s lair, or into thin air. Although, the feeling of air flying past her montrals would be most welcome at the moment, even if it necessitated a sudden, messy stop--

Ahsoka digs her fingers into a clump of grass, half meditating and half lost in thought, and nearly recoils as her palm connects with something gritty and moist. Her hand comes away black and stinking. That is all the warning she gets before everything green begins to wither.

Overhead, the edges of the sun seem to catch aflame, eaten away like a piece of flimsi.

“No,” Ahsoka breaths, and then there is suddenly no more time. Her head whips around madly as she searches for cover from the quickly approaching darkness. Then, as the last of the flora dissipates like dust in the wind, she catches a glimpse of a hole in the wall of the ravine.

It is no larger than the burrow of a wild loth-cat, at least at the surface of the soil, but as she watches, a faint light issues from within it. The intensity and spectrum of the light bring to mind half-forgotten memories of a dying campfire in a musty cavern, and a face that both was and was not hers at the same time.

 _Safety, temporarily,_ she thinks, and all she needs is the former to begin scrambling in that direction. 

The last of the sun crumples as she claws her way to the burrow, and for only a moment, the sky radiates a sickly gray-green light. Ahsoka scrabbles at the soft dirt of the ravine wall, which caves easily, and she hauls herself inside just as the gray is consumed by a sudden outpouring of inky blackness. It originates from the very same spot the sun had hung only minutes before.

The whole exchange is entirely, unnaturally silent, but Ahsoka cannot help but shiver. The echo of a scream lingers in her ears, and despite her extensive acquaintance with horror, she is certain it is not one she has heard before.

Settling back against the wall of the cramped burrow, Ahsoka wonders not for the first time if it is events on Mortis that determine the balance of the galaxy - or the reverse. 

Had it already been determined that the Light would dim before the Daughter had sacrificed herself to the wrath of her brother? 

That begs another equally, if not more important, question. 

_When_ was she? What was happening in the galaxy to prompt such extremes in the balance of the Force, and what in the universe could be so horrible as to cause the Light-

Ahsoka stiffens. The sudden death of the Emperor, followed by the violence that would fill the power vacuum, might just do it. Could that be what this was?

She is ripped from that avenue of thought by the sound of something moving in the faint light of the burrow’s crystal formations. Ahsoka is suddenly very aware that she is not alone in the cramped space.

“A great many things move in the Force that you do not comprehend, my foolish friend.” The voice issues from behind the jut of a particularly beautiful crystal, sounding young and tired and too familiar for Ahsoka to truly comprehend before the edges of two white and blue montrals appear from behind the crystal.

A pair of inquisitive blue eyes follow, set in a face that has yet to loose its roundness and gain its familiar hungry sharpness. Ahsoka Tano only watches with a heavy heart as her padawan self crosses the distance between them to kneel in front of her.

The apprentice tilts her head at Ahsoka’s lack of reaction. “Do you not recognize me?” 

“I recognize you, Daughter,” Ahsoka murmurs, “although our positions were reversed the last time we talked.”

“I do not recall this,” says the apprentice, hands curling into loose fists where they rest on her thighs. “Although it has been some time since out last meeting. You seem… different, Ashla.” She curiously observes Ahsoka’s startled reaction to the name. 

The Daughter should not know that alias. Ahsoka had only begun using it after the name _Ahsoka Tano_ became synonymous with _Jedi traitor_ and _kill on sight._ The Daughter’s casual use of it is deeply unsettling, and Ahsoka is forced to once again recalculate what year it might be in the wider galaxy. 

She had first thought that it was before… everything. The Light still lived, and had been stronger than it ever had been in her lifetime, so it would make sense for this to be the distant or near past. 

But neither Light nor Dark truly died, and who was to say that the Three did not regenerate as the balance shifted in the galaxy? This might reasonably be the far or near future. Ahsoka’s head was beginning to hurt.

“What happened?” Ahsoka asks eventually, waving a hand to the darkness of the land rather than trying to wrap her head around the Daughter’s apparent recognition of her by an assumed name.

The apprentice’s expression frosts over, and her tone is frigid to match when she says, “My brother has broken one of my favorite playthings, and he won’t give it back. He is jealous that I have all the nicest toys, and he does not even realize that what makes them nice is that they come to me on their own.” The girl’s frown deepens, and she glances up at Ahsoka’s face before looking away quickly. 

And if that wasn’t deeply chilling on its own- “My brother likes to hurt things until they like him,” the Daughter scowls.

“Oh,” Ahsoka says faintly. “Have you tried asking him… not to?” Privately, Ahsoka winced, even as the apprentice gave her an unimpressed look. 

“It wouldn’t help,” the girl states dismissively. “Father says that my brother will always do what is selfish. That is why I must always do what is selfless.” 

Once again, Ahsoka finds she has no idea what to say. 

“Wouldn’t it be better if your Father told him what he’s doing is wrong?” she hazards. The apprentice shakes her head.

“He nearly killed Father after Father took away the animals. My brother and I both love our Father, and he doesn’t want to kill Father because then there would be no one who would love him.” Her expression sours. “I wouldn’t love my brother if my Father was gone.”

“Daughter,” Ahsoka says carefully. “Can you tell me what year it is?”

“No,” the Daughter retorts, clearly thinking this a rather silly question. “Time isn’t real.”

“Ah. Of course.”

She seems to take pity on Ahsoka, and offers, “It has been several hundred eras since last we spoke,” then apparently mistakes Ahsoka’s blank countenance for understanding. “I think I understand how you are different: you not only have not found the answers to your questions, you are not even asking them! Why not? They seemed perfectly reasonable, if a little broad for your mortal mind.”

Ahsoka shakes her head, getting the overpowering sense that they are talking completely past one another. 

“I haven’t asked you any questions,” Ahsoka explains helplessly. “You must have spoken with some other version of myself. The last memories I have of you are when I came here with my masters.”

The Daughter stares, and Ahsoka finds that wide eyed and innocent curiosity is a very unsettling thing to see on the face of her padawan self. 

“But you’re the first person I’ve seen in this place since it was created,” the apprentice protests wonderingly, and now it’s just the two of them sitting across from each other in the almost darkness, completely confounded. 

“You don’t remember?” asks Ahsoka. “But- is it because you died?”

“No, I would remember that.” The Daughter is perfectly unfazed by this bizarre admission.

Ahsoka’s jaw works soundlessly. “You would remember dying, but you don’t remember the _‘Chosen One’_ -”

“The Chosen One? What does that mean, chosen by who?”

“I-” Suddenly, Ahsoka gets the feeling she has set something horrible into motion. But she can’t seem to stop talking.

“The one chosen to bring balance back to the galaxy. He will be accompanied by a student and a teacher, and in saving them will doom the galaxy to darkness unless he stays to control the Light and the Dark that act through Mortis. Only he will be strong enough to do so, so long as he remains strong in his convictions. He will be the damnation of the galaxy, and the final hope of the Light.” 

The apprentice says nothing, merely staring at Ahsoka with wide eyes, and she understands the sentiment, because _where had that come from?_

“Could the Chosen One make my brother give back my toys?” The Daughter asks, pointing to the outside, where the blackness sprawls gleefully over the hills of Mortis. 

“I guess so,” Ahsoka says distantly. 

“Then he needs to come here now! My toys are hurting!”

Lifting an eyebrow, Ahsoka says, with all the sternness she can muster, “He can’t right now. You’ll just have to find new toys.”

“I will,” the apprentice mutters mutinously. “And they’ll be better than the ones he took. I’ll make my new toys so good that the ones he stole will sneak back to join me before he notices.”

“Right.”

The Daughter glances outside. “I think you should leave. My brother doesn’t know you’re here yet, but Father might tell him because I know you’re here, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to have a secret friend.” 

Ahsoka’s pulse spikes in alarm; she absolutely does not want to speak to the Son. 

“I’ll make a distraction so you can make it back to you portal thing,” says the Daughter. “And maybe the next time we speak, you’ll finally be asking the right questions. Again.”

With that, she shakes off the face of young padawan Tano and assumes the form of a glowing green stallion. Issuing a great, ear-rending bellow, she erupts from the side of the ravine with a spray of dirt and charges upwards through the air. 

The sky itself seems to shriek, and then the darkness folds in on itself and congeals into a single abyssal mass, peeling away from the horizon and leaving behind the same gray-green as before. The blackness solidifies into the form of a diving hawk. The hawk and the stallion meet with an explosive boom, but Ahsoka isn’t interested in watching the performance.

Gathering herself, she unhooks her ‘sabers from her belt and sets off in a dead sprint towards the door that had brought her here. The slope of the ravine is punishing on her ankles, and she has no doubt that she will very much regret the terrain once the adrenaline burns away, but for the moment she can hardly bring herself to care.

A single slick black vine brushes against her leg, and she ignites her shoto only long enough to hack it away. It is, apparently, too long.

A piece of the darkness separates from the seething mass of light and shadow, plummeting towards her with frightening speed, but she only has a few stumbling steps left.

Closer, closer, closer, and the door shuts behind Ahsoka just in time to cut off the enraged howl of the Son.

**Author's Note:**

> I stan a bratty childish Daughter because I just recently rewatched that episode and she is a Little Bitch sometimes. 
> 
> Anyways tell me waht you think might have been happening during the events of the siblings' fight (because I have an idea, but that doesn't automatically make it the best one)


End file.
